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Google announced this week that it will shut down Google News for users in Spain in response to a new intellectual property law which will take effect in the country starting next year. The law, dubbed the 鈥淕oogle Tax,鈥� would require Google and other news aggregators to pay publishers to show their content on their sites. Since Google doesn鈥檛 make any money from the News service, the company decided a pay-for-publication approach isn鈥檛 sustainable. Google will close Google News in Spain next week and will remove Spanish publishers from Google News sites in other countries.

Spain鈥檚 鈥淕oogle Tax鈥� law is an effort to protect the country鈥檚 local media industry by giving publishers more bargaining power against online news aggregators such as Google. The law doesn鈥檛 specify how much Google would have to pay publishers, but it sets a penalty of 600,000 Euros ($748,000) for failure to comply. That鈥檚 a hefty potential fee for Google, which aggregates millions of news links but doesn鈥檛 make any advertising revenue off its News Service.

Google News chief Richard Gingras said in a on Thursday, 鈥淭his new legislation requires every Spanish publication to charge services like Google News for showing even the smallest snippet from their publications, whether they want to or not. As Google News itself makes no money ... 聽this new approach is simply not sustainable.鈥� Google News will shut down in Spain on December 16, ahead of when the new law takes effect in January.

There has always been tension between Google and European media services, who that Google is building its own media empire by using their copyrighted content for free. But Google says its News service provides value by driving billions of people to those sites, increasing advertising revenue for publications large and small. Last year, Google from Google News in response to a German law that allowed (but did not require) newspapers to demand payment from Google. The publishers soon asked Google to be relisted, saying their exclusion from Google News had caused visitor traffic and ad revenues to plummet.

Spain鈥檚 exclusion from Google News means Spanish readers will have to work a bit harder to find information and updates, and international readers will have less-easy access to news from and about the country. That could be significant, since Spain will have -- local, regional, and national -- in 2015. Spanish news organizations won鈥檛 be able to reach Latin American readers through Google News, and reports in English from outlets such as El Pais, Spain鈥檚 leading daily newspaper, won鈥檛 reach international readers.